


Love Lies Bleeding

by annieke



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annieke/pseuds/annieke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set on the heels of Wagon Train. Vin has doubts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Lies Bleeding

**Author's Note:**

> Written several years ago, and part of some fic I'm just now moving over to here.

Sometimes he was invisible.

It wasn't hard, wasn't something he had to work to do. It just was.

Even now with his life in this town, banked by better men than he'd known, friends, he could disappear even as he sat surrounded by them. Sometimes he'd make a comment or shift just enough, and one of them would look to him as if startled to find him there.

It was a talent, Buck told him once, and he supposed that could be--one that stemmed from a need to hide in plain sight these days. A talent he'd rather not had to have perfected, but one he'd come to rely on over the years.

For right now, though, being invisible seemed, if not what he'd prefer then at least the better part of wise. After the past couple of days of the disaster of the wagon train followed by the long, silent hours as they'd all ridden back to town, becoming one with his surroundings seemed best.

If he didn't think the others--hell, if he didn't think Chris--would interpret it badly, he'd leave for a while, go out riding to clear his head, but there was enough wavering doubt about his position with these men lingering in his mind without him adding fuel to an already stoked fire. He didn't want them to think he was running out on them. Again.

Not that he had the first time; he had never intended to leave them. Hell--it just kind of fell that way. Charlotte meeting up with him as he rode away--he hadn't been expecting her, yet there'd she'd been--and somehow there had been a fleeting thought that he'd be missing a chance at something if he just let her go.

Brazil. Hell, he wasn't even sure where in the hell Brazil was and, besides, love between him and Charlotte had never been real, anyway. He knew that now. He had known it then.

Funny how looking back on it now that it was past, he could see how foolish he'd acted: seeking something he'd never had before, touching something he'd never really wanted--

Charlotte had looked at him in a way he thought a woman might look at a man she could love, and that had sparked some sort of longing inside. There'd been some women over the years, he wasn't new to their interest or affections although no woman he knew had ever stirred him the way . . . 

Well, not in the way he really felt deep down. Even Charlotte hadn't done that to him.  
Besides, he had always rather have kept company with men. Being with a man, even the very few he'd been with that way over the years, it just fit who he was--always had.

Wasn't like he hadn't figured out that Charlotte had used him to get at her husband, and while that wasn't the crushing thought some of the others probably figured it to be, it did reopen his eyes to who he really was and what he really wanted--

And what he really wanted was right here--and he'd pretty much screwed that up good.

Chris had kept Billy with him most of the ride home, acting like some kind of buffer between them. Not like he could have any sort of conversation about what all had gone on with that kid around, and he wondered how much of that was Chris wanting to keep some distance. They hadn't talked at all for most of the ride.

Seeing Chris playing that Gerard feller, making him work for Mary's affections. Did Chris really want to be with Mary after all these months?

He doubted it--but then, he was doubting so much lately, he was hard-pressed in trusting his own thoughts, much less those of that man. Chris hadn't made any paths his way, anyway, not in a long while.

The hour was late, the saloon dark and hot and smelling of stale beer, but a welcoming enough place that, after all that mess, he was glad to be there.

Flickering light from several lanterns filled the corners with dark shadows while casting bright rings upon the tables where they sat. He'd seen Ezra playing poker with several men, knew he'd be occupied for hours and he figured that was just as well. He didn't have much to say to him anyway.

Buck and JD had been in, had come over to sit at his table but he wasn't in the mood for whatever it was that had them laughing and, although he never said a word one way or another, it wasn't long before Buck nudged JD in the shoulder and they moved off to the bar. Away from him.

It was just as well, although a part of him wanted someone to sit. Not engage him, necessarily, but just sit down.

Funny how he could feel so lonely even surrounded by a room full of people.

Nathan and Josiah had come by earlier, both standing on the periphery of his table as though waiting for an invitation to settle. He didn't offer, though. Nathan had asked how he was feeling and he'd grunted his reply, then they'd moved on as well. His ribs hurt, his shoulder hurt and there was some sort of painful lump hidden under his hat; being blown off a hill by dynamite didn't leave a man altogether unscathed no matter how much he tried to shake if off--not that he remembered much about the fall--

But after, him lying there, albeit somewhat stunned--Chris had wrapped arms around him. That, he remembered. First time in a long time he'd felt Chris touch him.

Shit, he thought, taking a deep pull of his beer, seemed like forever ago, that first time they touched. Whiskey, bed, more whiskey.

Who knew after that night how much more of Chris he would crave? Never mind he'd been somewhat surprised by the invitation as it was--not knowing much about Chris except how much he'd been attracted to the man then. Still was now. So, two times--two times they'd gotten together, stripped each other bare until they were skin to skin, going at one another as if there wasn't flesh enough to go around. 

That first night in the small room he'd rented--they hadn't spoken a whole lot, not with words, anyway; but somehow, even then, they'd been connected enough to know what they'd both wanted. It had been quick, over before it had really begun and even as Chris had left, he'd found himself longing for more.

The second time had been Chris coming to him again--one night just the two of them out in the wilds, both of them inching toward each other until they were going at one another like they were starved.

And then, well, nothing. Nothing much of nothing, and because he didn't really know and Chris never said anything after either time, he let it go. Let Chris go.

And waited.

And got nothing.

And speak of the devil--he watched as Chris seemed to just appear at the bar as if conjured out of dark. He watched him, watched Buck sidle up to him. They spoke what seemed to be few words, Buck then nodding once and rejoining JD, now at a table. Chris never turned around. Never looked his way.

No, he never could figure out what all there was between Mary and Chris, anyway. Chris hadn't ever showed much interest until that damned wagon train. 

It still irked him, Chris's words about not being able to depend on him. He'd never given him cause for thinking that, never had let any of them down.

So now he wasn't sure he could figure out what all there was between him and Chris, either.

Charlotte.

He sighed and drained his beer in one long swallow, thinking about maybe ordering a bottle to go. There wasn't enough whiskey in the place to erase away these past weeks.

Josiah was watching him from across the room, and had he the energy as well as the desire, he would have waved him over to share his table. He made no move, though, and after a few moments, Josiah gave him a brief nod and then left, Nathan, too, glancing his way as he followed Josiah out the swinging doors.

It wasn't like he was feeling unfriendly, he just didn't have anything much to say.

Chris was ignoring him, though, as if he were truly invisible--

Not that being invisible was all that hard when someone wasn't looking, anyway.

end.


End file.
